1. Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to document control architectures for use in data processing systems and, more particularly, to a technique for the dynamic selection of logical element data formats based upon logical element characteristics which are established as a document is created or modified. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to a technique for the dynamic selection of recursively nested logical element data formats based upon the order of appearance and level within a nested relationship for each logical element.
2. Background Art
When editing a document with known text editing systems, changes in logical element relationships do not dynamically result in changes to the format of the data portion of each logical element. For example, an author may indent the first paragraph of each section of a document and block subsequent paragraphs in the document. When the first paragraph of a section is moved using existing state of the art text editors, paragraph reformatting must be explicitly specified by the user if the movement results in a change of paragraph order within sections. New first paragraphs which were originally blocked must now be indented by entering indent commands or by linking the paragraph to a style sheet that specifies identified paragraph style. Similarly, indented paragraphs which are no longer first paragraphs must now be blocked by entering commands which cancel the indenting or by linking that paragraph to a style sheet which specifies blocked paragraph style.
A specific example in the so-called desktop publishing field is the Ventura Publisher produced by the Xerox Corporation. This product utilizes style sheets into which text, graphic, table and/or image data may be imported from other application programs such as word processors, spread sheets or the like. A selected number of style sheets are included with the product, and the user may generate other style sheets either by modifying existing style sheets or by creating new style sheets by inputting the specifications for those style sheets.
Once text has been imported, chapter headings, subheadings, first paragraphs and other document elements may be tagged, resulting in formatting of the data according to predefined characteristics contained within the style sheets. For example, the first paragraph of a chapter might be formatted blocked with the first letter of the first sentence being a 36 point typesize of a particular font with the remainder of the text characters in 10 point typesize and flowing around the first letter. However, in the course of editing the document, if the first paragraph is moved or changed, then the tags must be deleted and new tags applied to the new first paragraph. Thus, it should be apparent that these tags are attached to and associated with each document element such as a paragraph, title, heading or the like.
More recently, in the cross-referenced application noted above, it has been proposed to provide a method by which the format of the data portion of a logical element may be dynamically modified as the data is created or edited by making a decision as to what data format will be used based upon logical element characteristics such as the parent of the logical element, and the sequence of the logical element among other logical elements. While this represents an advance in the art, this technique does not recognize the possibility of recursively nested logical elements within a document wherein multiple relationships may occur between two logical elements within a loop structure in a document.
Thus, it should be apparent that a need exists for a method whereby the data format of a logical element within a recursively nested group of logical elements may be dynamically selected based upon the order of appearance of a logical element within a nested relationship and the level within the nested relationship where that logical element appears.